Bernard Cornwell - Excalibur

I left her. In the next few days the snow thawed, but the rains came again and the bare black trees dripped onto a land that seemed to be rotting in the misty damp. The solstice neared, though the sun never showed. The world was dying in dark, damp despair. I waited for Arthur’s return, but he did not summon me. He took his new bride to Durnovaria and there he celebrated the solstice. If he cared what Guinevere thought of his new marriage, he did not ask me.

We gave the feast of the winter solstice in Dun Caric’s hall and there was not a person present who did not suspect it would be our last. We made our offerings to the midwinter sun, but knew that when the sun rose again it would not bring life to the land, but death. It would bring Saxon spears and Saxon axes and Saxon swords. We prayed, we feasted and we feared that we were doomed. And still the rain would not stop.

‘Who?’ Igraine demanded as soon as she had read the first sheet of the latest pile of parchments. She has learned some of the Saxon tongue in the last few months and is very proud of herself for that achievement, though in truth it is a barbarous language and much less subtle than the British.

‘Who?’ I echoed her question.

‘Who was the woman who guided Britain to destruction? It was Nimue, wasn’t it?’

‘If you give me time to write the tale, dear Lady, you will find out.’

‘I knew you were going to say that. I don’t even know why I asked.’ She sat on the wide ledge of my windowsill with one hand on her swollen belly and with her head cocked to one side as though she were listening. After a while a look of mischievous delight came to her face. ‘The baby’s kicking,’ she said, ‘do you want to feel it?’

I shuddered. ‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I was never interested in babies.’

She made a face at me. ‘You’ll love mine, Derfel.’

‘I will?’

‘He’s going to be lovely!’

‘How do you know,’ I enquired, ‘that it is a boy?’

‘Because no girl can kick this hard, that’s why. Look!’ And my Queen smoothed the blue dress tight over her belly and laughed when the smooth dome flickered. ‘Tell me about Argante,’ she said, letting go of the dress.

‘Small, dark, thin, pretty.’

Igraine made a face at the inadequacy of my description. ‘Was she clever?’

I thought about it. ‘She was sly, so yes, she had a sort of cleverness, but it was never fed by education.’

My Queen gave that statement a scornful shrug. ‘Is education so important?’

‘I think it is, yes. I always regret I never learned Latin.’

‘Why?’ Igraine asked.

‘Because so much of mankind’s experience is written in that tongue, Lady, and one of the things an education gives us is access to all the things other folks have known, feared, dreamed and achieved. When you are in trouble it helps to discover someone who has been in the same predicament before. It explains things.’

‘Like what?’ Igraine demanded.

I shrugged. ‘I remember something Guinevere once said to me. I didn’t know what it meant, because it was in Latin, but she translated it, and it explained Arthur exactly. I’ve never forgotten it either.’

‘Well? Go on.’

‘ Odi at amo,’ I quoted the unfamiliar words slowly, ‘ excruaor.’

‘Which means?’

‘I hate and I love, it hurts. A poet wrote the line, I forget which poet, but Guinevere had read the poem and one day, when we were talking about Arthur, she quoted the line. She understood him exactly, you see.’

‘Did Argante understand him?’

‘Oh, no.’

‘Could she read?’

‘I’m not sure. I don’t remember. Probably not.’

‘What did she look like?’

‘She had very pale skin,’ I said, ‘because she refused to go into the sun. She liked the night, Argante did. And she had very black hair, as shiny as a raven’s feathers.’

‘You say she was small and thin?’ Igraine asked.

‘Very thin, and quite short,’ I said, ‘but the thing I remember most about Argante is that she very rarely smiled. She watched everything and missed nothing, and there was always a calculating look on her face. People mistook that look for cleverness, but it wasn’t cleverness at all. She was merely the youngest of seven or eight daughters and so she was always worried that she would be left out. She was looking for her share all the time, and all the time she believed she was not receiving it.’

Igraine grimaced. ‘You make her sound horrid!’

‘She was greedy, bitter and very young,’ I said, ‘but she was also beautiful. She had a delicacy that was very touching.’ I paused and sighed. ‘Poor Arthur. He did pick his women very badly. Except for Ailleann, of course, but then he didn’t pick her. She was given to him as a slave.’

‘What happened to Ailleann?’

‘She died in the Saxon War.’

‘Killed?’ Igraine shuddered.

‘Of the plague,’ I said. ‘It was a very normal death.’

Christ.

That name does look odd on the page, but I shall leave it there. Just as Igraine and I were talking about Ailleann, Bishop Sansum came into the room. The saint cannot read, and because he would utterly disapprove of my writing this story of Arthur, Igraine and I pretend that I am making a gospel in the Saxon tongue. I say he cannot read, but Sansum does have the ability to recognize some few words and Christ is one of them. Which is why I wrote it. He saw it, too, and grunted suspiciously. He looks very old these days. Almost all his hair has gone, though he still has two white tufts like the ears of Lughtigern, the mouse lord. He has pain when he passes urine, but he will not submit his body to the wise-women for healing, for he claims they are all pagans. God, the saint claims, will cure him, though at times, God forgive me, I pray that the saint might be dying for then this small monastery would have a new bishop.

‘My Lady is well?’ he asked Igraine after squinting down at this parchment.

‘Thank you, Bishop, I am.’

Sansum poked about the room, looking for something wrong, though what he expected to find I cannot tell. The room is very simple; a cot, a writing table, a stool and a fire. He would have liked to criticize me for burning a fire, but today is a very mild winter’s day and I am saving what small fuel the saint permits me to have. He flicked at a scrap of dust, decided not to comment on it and so peered at Igraine instead. ‘Your time must be very near, Lady?’

‘Less than two moons, they say, Bishop,’ Igraine said, and made the sign of the cross against her blue dress.

‘You will know, of course, that our prayers will echo throughout heaven on your Ladyship’s behalf,’

Sansum said, without meaning a word of it.

‘Pray, too,’ Igraine said, ‘that the Saxons are not close.’

‘Are they?’ Sansum asked in alarm.

‘My husband hears they are readying to attack Ratae.’

‘Ratae is far away,’ the Bishop said dismissively.

‘A day and a half?’ Igraine said, ‘and if Ratae falls, what fortress lies between us and the Saxons?’

‘God will protect us,’ the Bishop said, unconsciously echoing the long-dead belief of the pious King Meurig of Gwent, ‘as God will protect your Ladyship at the hour of your trial.’ He stayed a few more minutes, but had no real business with either of us. The saint is bored these days. He lacks mischief to foment. Brother Maelgwyn, who was the strongest of us and who carried much of the monastery’s physical labour, died a few weeks ago and, with his passing, the Bishop lost one of his favourite targets for contempt. He finds little pleasure in tormenting me for I endure his spite patiently, and besides, I am protected by Igraine and her husband.